#it's gonna be about how like. they don't like her talking about racism and homophobia as inseparable from craft

[rotzaprachim]

surprisingly and deeply kinda dissapointed with elaine castillo’s how to read now book of essays but shhhhh don’t let any of the white people on goodreads hear about it 

[hazbin-but-good]

another hazbin hotel rewrite/redesign?

yup! and i'm so serious about it that i made a whole blog for it. i'm a white queer ex-cath tran doing this as an art and writing exercise, so feedback from other creatives + jewish and/or racialized folks is especially welcome.

i'm putting this post and only this post in the main tags for visibility. also, not gonna link my main, but i do make my own original stuff, and i encourage fans and haters alike to do the same.

anyway, here's a mostly good-faith 1.7k-word essay on the original. i think it's pretty funny and brings up some less talked-about points. correct me on the facts, disagree with my opinions, and ask clarifying questions, but don't come at me with any piss-poor reading comprehension.

the hellaverse is garbage, and here's why

cw: strong language, stronger opinions, intersectional feminist critical discourse analysis

1. vivienne medrano, the person

medrano was born as a well-off white-passing latina (salvadoran-american) in bougieass frederick, maryland. while attending new york's top art school, she got popular on deviantart-tumblr-twitter by being a prolific multifandom fujoshi furry who's more into ornamental character design than storytelling. upon graduation, she leveraged her fanbase and industry connections to make the hazbin and helluva boss pilots, get helluva made for youtube, and get hazbin made for amazon prime.

like every woman online, she gets harassed for no good reason, and as a certified autist, i will defend her right to be dumb, weird, annoying, and bad with words. however, there are legit reasons to criticize her:

racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, some antisemitism, past transphobia, past ableism

shitty boss, bad friend

cowardly, vindictive, manipulative, thoughtless behavior

skeevy friends

sucks at taking criticism

in short, i think she desperately needs a PR person and someone to clean up her digital footprint.

2. medrano's art

incurious

inauthentic

noncommittal

creatively stagnant

overindulgent, and the indulgence isn't even fun

shallow and childish framed as complex and mature

bland and boring framed as shocking and subversive

to be clear, i'm at peace with the existence of suckass art like this; i just think the money, attention, and praise it gets are unearned and should go to more interesting works, of which there are infinite.

medrano's had the time, money, and social cache to grow as an artist, learn from the best, and take creative risks, but she hasn't. if she truly has nothing more to offer, she should let her collaborators take the wheel, but she doesn't do that either. instead, she keeps getting more and more resources to make the same baby bullshit, and that pisses me off. she could be the nicest person ever, and this fundamental arrogance would still make her art blow.

stop with the pointless guilt: liking medrano's work does not make you stupid or evil. however, if you stay in the kiddie pool of culture, if you refuse to engage with a diversity of art, if the hellaverse is your point of reference for anything media-related, you can't expect to have your opinions on art, media, or culture taken seriously. you have not earned a seat at the table. you gotta hit the books first.

i cannot emphasize enough how much incredible stuff is out there if you're willing to look further than what social media and streaming services put right in front of you. if you come away from this blog having learned about just one new artist or piece of art, i'll be a happy camper.

3. the hellaverse

a. empty and confused

hazbin and helluva's content and marketing has no clear target audience. the subjects are inappropiate for teens, but the execution is too childish for adults, and lemme tell you what i don't mean by that, first.

not inherently inappropriate for teens:

sex and sexuality

violence, including when it intersects with the above

politics and religion

not inherently childish:

animation (any style)

comedy

episodic writing and/or loose continuity

young characters

fun, happiness, optimism, the power of friendship, cuteness, tenderness, sincerity, etc.

what i mean is that these shows are literally about adult characters who fuck, smoke, drink, do drugs, go clubbing, work full-time, manage their own finances, and deal with stuff like bureaucracy, sexual violence, domestic abuse, marriage, divorce, late adoption, and family estrangement.

however, none of these "adult" things are given enough specificity to create drama or comedy. it's all too stock, vague, flat, weirdly sanitized, and thus utterly banal—pure aesthetics on top of bad saturday morning cartoons. it's exactly what i'd expect from a sheltered disney kid who needs to log off and get into their local gay scene ASAP so their only contact with things like poverty, policing, addiction, and sex work stops being facile movies and TV.

if the shows were aware of this and played with it, that could be amazing, but they're not. they give you the mickey mouse version of the world with a straight face and then play looney tunes sound effects to try to make you laugh and sad_violin.mp3 to try to make you cry. now that's funny.

b. old and tired

let's make like americans and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. even within the confines of the USA, home of the hays code, the red scare, and reaganite propaganda, this neopuritan fascist state ruled by 1000 megachurches in a trenchcoat, the indie/underground animation scene has been doing crazier shit for decades. anti-war films in the 60's, bakshi movies in the 70's, the simpsons shorts and r-rated movies in the 80's, adult swim and MTV in the 90's, flash/newgrounds/youtube in the 00's, streaming in the 2010's—so what are we doing in the 2020's with this wet white rice drowned in expired ketchup? i feel crazy making this point because it's obvious if you've watched these things, but if you haven't, you're gonna be like "well, there's gotta be something new here". no! there isn't! in the words of jimmy "the scot" jordan, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!

c. ideological purgatory

actually, there is one thing in these shows i've never seen before: the presbysterianism. shout out some interesting or at least intentional presbysterian art in the comments, because the way these ideas are presented here is not compelling. it just makes the rainbow neoliberalism even more confusing and contradictory.

i guess the big presbysterian things are protestanism, calvinism, and, uh, big church government? presbysterians, get your shit together. get your brand down. catholics have BDSM and vampires, evangelicals have TV and corporatism; what do you have? celtic crosses? no wonder medrano has such uninspired ideas on divinity.

d. queer deficiency

when i look at a piece of art, i ask myself: "what does this give me that i can't get from the hunchback of notre dame (1996)?" if the answer is as limp as "uhh, gay people, i guess", i can probably look for my gay shit elsewhere and rewatch the hunchback of notre dame (1996) in the meantime.

but let's say that you have no standards. you've been waiting for ages for a show about gays by the gays for the gays, and by god you're gonna get it. this is it! here we go! time for some

generic twink obliteration

male sexuality as aggression and dominance displays

WLW (sex and chemistry not included)

a couple straight femdoms

and the stalest sex jokes known to man

...yeah, it's not very queer. and by "queer", i mean "questioning or subverting gender norms (including sexual roles) within a given cultural context regardless of creator identity and intent". i'm not a queer studies scholar so LMK if there's a more specific term for this, but whatever you call it, it's not in the hellaverse much.

there's not even any transness, literal or metaphorical, just ancient drag jokes. i guess the writers thought we would've been too controversial. so much for an indie animation studio that prides itself in the diversity of its staff both above and below the line, bakshi-style. i wonder how medrano, a bisexual woman, would've felt if told that a lesbian main couple in hazbin would be "too controversial".

4. spindlehorse and the vivziepop brand

spindlehorse toons underpays its overworked staff and keeps outsourcing more and more labor to even more overworked freelancers overseas to cut costs. a rainbow sweatshop is still a sweatshop, and just because these practices may be "industry standard" doesn't make them any more ethical.

the studio has also been repeatedly accused by current and former employees and contractors of creating a hostile and abusive workplace. AFAIK, it still has no dedicated HR person, and victims are too afraid of retaliation like blacklisting and online harassment to speak out.

this is exactly the stuff that unions exist to prevent. as i'm writing this, the IATSE (the parent union of TAG, which is the parent union of all US animation unions) is negotiating with entertainment industry executives for better working conditions, and if the execs fuck around like last year, it's strike time again. so watch this space, voice your support, and don't cross any picket lines.

i hope spindlehorse unionizes, but until then and for these reasons, i don't think you should give money to the company.

first of all, all content on amazon-owned platforms is ok to pirate, and all youtube ads are ok to block. everyone involved in making the episodes has (or should have) been paid upfront, so you're not taking the bread out of anyone's mouth.

next, let's look at the succulent offerings of the official vivziepop merch shop:

$10 pins and keychains

$15 sticker packs

$20 mugs and acrylic cutouts

$25 shirts

$30 metal cards (not even tarot)

$40 lounge pants

$50 mini backpacks

random $80 skateboard deck

forgive my latin americanness, but this is all stuff you can get made by a local metalsmith, print/sublimation shop, or just crafty people in your life. it's cheaper, customizable, and better for the environment to skip all the shipping and packaging. also, not painting your own skateboard is poser shit.

the hazbin website also has $15 pins, one $20 keychain, and $6 trading card packs. people are weird about trading cards, so if for some reason you wanna gamble for a mass-produced bit of cardboard, plastic, and tinfoil, at least bulk-order for all the vivziepoppers in your area so it's less of a huge waste. better yet, trace the designs and make infinite bootlegs.

at the end of the day, buying merch is not activism. your bulk order of trading cards will not save any wage slaves from getting evicted from their overpriced studio apartments. however, the shop links you to all the credited artists/designers, and more of your bucks will actually reach them if you buy their designs directly, then turn them into body pillows or life-sized bronze statues or whatever the fuck.

go through the credits of any episode of helluva or hazbin, and you'll find even more creatives you might wanna support. get jinkx monsoon's albums on CD. subscribe to actually good artist, animator, and composer gooseworx. lots of voice actors now have patreon, cameo, or self-hosted pages where you can write better lines for their characters and have them read it. these things may not look as shiny as Official Merch™, but we all need less plastic shit and more culture anyway.

[president-coriolanus-snow]

So here's the tea.

For three weeks I've had this image as my desktop background at work

This has not been an issue for the 3 weeks I've had it up, so about a week ago I'm talking about Isaac with a coworker and for the first time I mention that Isaac (this character) is gay. He's in a relationship with a man.

Now, one of my other coworkers starts glaring at me at this point, they go for break, and when they come back from break, I'm getting hauled into HR.

Now HR Is requesting I change my desktop background, and you'll never guess why.

Apparently it's depicting racism.

........ Okay, not sure how anyone came to that conclusion but it gets worse.

So they ask me to change it, I told them I'd like to file a complaint against the person who complained for being homophobic, because the image wasn't an issue until they found out the character is gay.

They asked me to be the bigger man, I said I'm not bending to homophobia.

So this escalates, cause if they don't make me change it then it's consider a racial complaint, if they make me change it it's a homophobic complaint.

Anyway, they eventually get to me agree to change it. So ... naturally being the chaotic son of a bitch that I am. I change it to this image.

Same character, just gayer.

Now I'm getting hauled into another HR meeting about how I can't have this character, because it's still considered racist and it's making "people uncomfortable".

Okay .... so I said to her "It's specifically this character, you're considering this racial?" she goes "Yes." I'm like "So I can pick another character?" She goes "Yes, so long as it's not this character."

Okay.

So I change it to this.

Same actor ..... different character.

What's gonna be racial about this Debbie?!?!

So I get hauled into HR AGAIN .... and I'm being told that I need to change it because the positioning is "Too suggestive" and not appropriate for work. I wasn't aware yoga was consider suggestive, but here we sit.

So .... okay, if it's the position they have an issue with ...

I can close his legs .... that's fine.

Anyway long story short, Brandon Scott Jones has been banned from my work place.

The best part is - the complainer left their computer unlocked when they left today so I changed their desktop background to this

They don't know how to change their desktop background on their own - enjoy!

(Get you a job where you're humble enough to know you're replaceable, but confident enough to know that replacing you would be a pain in the ass for the company enough so that you can get away with this shit)

[brucewaynehater101]

I miss the feeling I had when I first joined this fandom, I knew virtually nothing so everything was correct and I loved everything, even if that stuff just isn’t true, i was like

Bruce is a bit emotionally constipated but loves his kids? Hell yeah sounds legit

dick is a silly happy flippy man who is a bit promiscuous? Love that for him

Jason is a mega feminist literature nerd who is also buff and takes care of the street kids? Perfect man honest

Tim is a nerd who never sleeps and is queer and has never known the touch of a man nor woman? Sweet

Steph is waffle obsessed goofball? Well I prefer pancakes but right on

Cass is a mute badass who loves her fam? I love her

Duke is a normal dude? Well someone has to be and he seems neat

Alfred can do no wrong? Aight, I love old perfect tea men

Damian is a little prick? So are all middle schoolers give him time

But then I had to go learn about the characters and now I have complex opinions about them, and can see the inherent racism and sexism in how they are portrayed

You know before I joined the bat fandom I did not use the exclude tag in ao3? Like tmnt and dp have some bad stuff but usually I could just scroll past.

but now I am having to avoid fics where whole ass adults are bullying and/or oversexulizing a child

Im constantly on the look out for untagged batcwst

I struggle to find fics that don’t describe dicks ass

I have been in this fandom for probably about two years now and y’all I swear

sorry for ranting, and don’t worry I love all your stuff and I know the just back click don’t leave mean comments rule

I’m just tried bc most of the stuff I thought was true turned out to be false

Mm. I do find it a little exhausting trying to navigate the lines of what's canon, what shouldn't be canon (but is due to racism/sexism/homophobia/etc.), and just having fun.

I'm also trying to cultivate the mindset of what I've seen on Tumblr about not policing other people's ships/ideas. I am highly uncomfortable with some (particularly underaged people and adults dating), but I'm also not leaving hate comments. Like you said, the backspace exists for a reason.

Idk. There's a toooon of takes/ideas about the batfam that are inherently false, but as long as they aren't racist/sexist/etc takes, I don't see the harm in them. So what if someone wants a coffee obsessed Tim? So what if Jason's kill code is very strict? As long as they don't claim it's canon, let them be

But yeah. I have a mile long exclude list for fics on AO3. I used to use it only for triggers (I can not do stockhold syndrome, my lords), but now it's got other weird ass shit I've stumbled upon (I saw a fic where the batkids were spanked as punishment??? Like I said, not gonna leave hate comments or single anyone out. Just not my cup of tea).

I also am usually not a fan of romance/sex. It's why the batfam intrigued me so much (found families usually don't have that in it). I like exploring dynamics outside of romance and thus love the batfam. They've got so much going on that romance/sex is not needed. They are such a mess without that dynamic being added (talking about the Bats getting with a third party, but, again, trying not to yuck anyone's yum).

However, I agree. There's a ton of misinformation within fandom. I like how complex canon gets with the characters, but there's also widely different takes with them (mostly talking about Bruce here. He can either be trying or just a straight up horrible dad).

[jesncin]

I appreciate most of your takes but don't understand how you look at a character like livewire, a character created in the middle of a 90's feminist movement and come to the conclusion she's supposed to a be a caricature of classical racist conservatism

?? huh is this an elaborate joke I'm missing out on?? Like you're roleplaying as a Shockateer? There's no tone indicators so I'm left to my own perception that you're being serious so I'll have to respond in seriousness. I'm gonna be so embarrassed if this is a joke :(((

So...just because a character is made "in the middle of the 90's" or "feminist movement" doesn't...mean they're a feminist character? Like with that logic, Tana Moon is a feminist icon I guess. Also "caricature of classical racist conservatism"? man, I kinda envy how people think the way I write her is Cartoony Evil Racism and not a toned down depiction of how personalities like Posie Parker, Matt Walsh, and Blaire White talk. I suppose I'm glad you haven't encountered anyone that awful. Good for you! 👍

Livewire meta under the cut fellas

I feel like you don't have a very holistic view of Livewire's character. Because while yes, she has been used for feminist critique in the show and comics, that's not all there is to her character. My take on Livewire is a commentary on how white womanhood intersects with parasocial internet grifts and the larger way identity gets filtered online. It's a take influenced by how she literally started out as a controversial provocative shock jock in STAS.

There's so much potential to re-imagine her hatred of Superman as a commentary on how white women feel justified in harassing marginalized men because it looks like a punch-up to misogyny. The way she uses the accident Superman caused as a way to white-woman-victimize herself and prime her audience to hate him more. You can take the spinoff comic where she only lets women speak on the air as her presenting a black and white, non-intersectional view of social progress. Kind of like how TERFs keep fantasizing about a world without men as a utopia? In CW Supergirl, Livewire plays into internalized misogyny and homophobia to jab at Supergirl. Not showing up for her fellow women if you ask me.

Because while yes, Leslie has been shown to be a character who had to deal with sexism, she's also a really compelling narrative for an imperfect victim. Just because a character deals with sexist hardship, doesn't mean it makes her a feminist ideal y'know? Leslie lashes out and weaponizes her victimhood, she uses her audience to bully others.

I think one of the flaws to the longevity of her character as a villain is because her narrow hatred of Supes makes her themes short lived. So I really want to expand it through Satoshi Kon-style deconstruction of how people juggle having multiple identities in the modern era. In the (bleh) Batgirl Burnside comic Livewire shows up in, she returns as a being of energy who doesn't remember who she was before. In STAS, it's left ambiguous whether she actually believes what she says about Superman or if it's all part of an act that "pays the bills!".

Imagine the opportunity to make it so she pieced together a sense of self from the fractured way her audience viewed her! What a great way to talk about how parasocial relationships make us think we know a person from the bombastic way they present themselves (Casually Comics thought of this brilliant take). DCSHG has been the most competent reimagining of Livewire. A perfect update of her shock jock origins into the internet era that revitalizes her attention-seeking traits into the clout-chasing grind of social media personality.

All this to say, Livewire's way more that just "sassy woman on the radio fighting against The Man!" I think making her a punk appropriating, rebellious, internet personality who uses her privilege to marginalize others for clout and money is a natural, more political progression of what DCSHG built with her character.

I don't really understand how you can look at a character whose most prominent iterations involve her bullying and targeting people (including other women) and tell me she's "feminist" unless you actually believe in Leslie's version of White Woman Girl Power. Any kind of "feminism" that touts Hating Men as a major point should be something to be critical of.

[lakesbian]

Hi, I just want to clarify that I don't mean this as an accusation but as an honest question; but when you and others on your posts are talking about narrative bigotry in Worm you talk about the racism and homophobia (which I agree with) but you also talk about fatphobia/fat characters being universally handled poorly, and I would love a breakdown as to why this is. With regards to Piggot when she was initially introduced I was thinking from how the heroes thought about her in their POV chapters that she was going to be the fatphobic stereotype of "soft and uncool but mean/unpleasant, disgusting fat civilian who doesn't know real courage and heroism like the thin, attractive heroes", and was pleasantly surprised when she got a lot more nuance than that, and also turned out to be very courageous and militaristic in contrast to the stereotype of "fat = cowardly and doesn't know real survival", with her flaws more lying in how she goes too far in that direction. In general the problem I typically see with how I see fat characters represented isn't just that they have flaws, but that they are never allowed to be "cool". They might be laughably dumb or they might be smart, but in a "loser nerd" way, never in a "clever scheming competent leader" kind of way. If they are negative/mean/evil characters, the emphasis is always on their venal, base qualities like gluttony, greed, and just being a jerk, they are never an "evil is cool" character with flaws like pride or a philosophy that is thoughtful and intended well but goes too far. So in that respect I thought Piggot was well-written, well besides. being literally named Piggot which is cringe but I could excuse as setting up the expectation of a stereotype to later support. And the only other character I remember being described as fat, Gregor the Snail, I have no memory of being any kind of problematic stereotype, though I don't remember him and his chapter that well either. So could you explain why Worm writes fat people badly/fatphobically?

this took way too long to answer because it's like. Well it's a simple answer but also this is a very long ask. so there's more to unpack. the short answer is just that literally, like, virtually 99.99% of the times a fat character or someone being fat is mentioned in literally any wildbow novel it's with palpable disgust. regardless of who the narrator is. it's obvious even with taylor but pact really hammers this home because blake is characterized in a way that indicates he should never be randomly judging someone's weight or appearance and he's still constantly written as observing whether or not someone is "fat." and it's in italics, like it's a slur or some grievous insult. like we're not even at the point of being able to analyze how wildbow writes specific fat characters here due to there are almost none of them and anytime fatness is mentioned it's in the context of it being stated in the same tone as if the narrator was observing someone picking their nose and eating it. like the loathing is Palpable. pay attention to how the phrases "fat" or "obese" or "morbidly obese" are used the next time you're reading a wildbow novel. you'll see what i mean.

as for the specific characters it's like. i think this post has everything icould think to say about gregor already in it, which as you will see is not very strongly opinionated. i mention piggot in it also. i don't remember enough abt either to just wax abt them at length but fundamentally it's that there's nothing particularly Strongly Good about either of them--not doing the "soft lazy uncool glutton" schtick is, like, bare minimum, and neither of them are very far above the bare minimum, and they're in a story that consistently does infinitely less than the bare minimum. there's gonna need to be more than a fat character Having Characterization before we can say that worm isn't wildly fatphobic

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for telling an old man to kill himself on his birthday?

btw this has transphobia homophobia racism in it so yeah be aware

i (cisM22) have a trans girlfriend (F23). we live in a relatively liberal area and, not to say that she isn't beautiful, but she doesn't pass all the way. but she has long hair and she was wearing a dress that day, so she looked very feminine.

we were on a date at a relatively fancy restaurant. we had reservations and everything. we sit down at our table and next to us as these six white old people having a fucking ball. they were loud as shit and obviously drunk but my gf and i just ignored it for a while because we wanted to have a good time.

one of them had a birthday cake set down in from of him and their drinks were topped off. and then, loud as shit, these wrinkly fucking ballsacks start spewing conservative hate. something about the florida anti-trans bills and how they should just round them together and shoot them. my girlfriend looked visibly uncomfortable so i called for a waiter and asked if we could get a table far away from them.

i guess they heard me and one of the old women looked at my girlfriend and murmured, "i guess he just couldn't handle the truth." and i felt nothing but rage, so i said, "what truth? that her tits are better than yours?" and from there it just went downhill.

i honestly can't remember much of the argument. it only lasted thirty seconds but in those thirty seconds, my girlfriend and one of the waiters were trying to calm us down. i had six crusty ass white people dogging on me, calling my girlfriend slurs, calling me slurs (i'm mexican), and i was saying shit about their dementia-ridden asses are gonna die alone in a nursing home cause they kids probably don't even talk to them cause "where the fuck they at gramps".

eventually the birthday bitch called me a faggot and i was like "this faggot is telling you to fucking kill yourself sir, shove that walking stick up your ass" and by that point they got security to escort me and my girlfriend out.

my girlfriend was in tears and really overwhelmed after that. she didn't say anything the whole ride home until we got there. she said that while she appreciated me defending her, i just caused an unnecessary scene, and telling that man to kill himself was too far. i apologized to her, even though the only thing i really feel bad about is making her cry, and i promised i wouldn't do it again.

i don't regret anything i did honestly. i just feel bad about ruining our date and making her cry. i don't think we should've been the ones to get kicked out of that restaurant either. i don't know if those old fucks got the boot, but i'm praying they break a hip or something.

aita?

What are these acronyms?

[lunarphoria]

☽ introduction post ☾

This is just gonna be a little introduction since i started to be a little more active on here and i want to try to keep my account as clear & organized as possible!

◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯

- 🌙 my name is Phoebe ^^

- 🌙 my pronouns are she✦her✦hers

- 🌙 i'm an aroace sapphic

- 🌙 i'm a teenage girl from europe , specifically germany ( so please excuse any minor spelling mistakes :') )

- 🌙 i'm a hellenic polytheist ( I'm still pretty new to the practice & keen on learning! )

◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯

- જ⁀➴ devoted to :

- 🌒 lady selene ; my matron , titaness , goddess & personification of the moon 🌘 ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆𓆩☾𓆪

- 🕊️ lady aphrodite ; goddess of love , beauty & pleasure 🐚 ・❥・° ᡣ𐭩 . ° .𓆩♡𓆪

- 🦌 lady artemis ; goddess of virginity, the hunt & the wilderness 🪶 ⁀➴ˎˊ˗ˋ°•*⁀➷̗̀

- 🗡️ lord ares ; god of war , courage & civil order 🛡️ ␥•—⟪=====> ⛏ ⛉

◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯

- 🌙 on this account, i mainly want to share my experiences with hellenic polytheism , share my art and get to know other people ! ( Little heads up , some of my art will include artistic, non sexual nudity, but I'll always give a warning in case someone is uncomfortable with it ^^)

- 🌙 my dms are always open in case anyone would like to chat ! i do struggle with communication quite a bit but i promise i'll try my absolute best !

- 🌙 i'd really appreciate the use of tone indicators , as I often have trouble deciphering the authenticity of statements and how serious they are meant to be taken. Please be patient with me <3

- 🌙 i also have an account on cara & instagram , both are @ lunarphoria :3

(by the way , don't be confused, you can still see my old signature ( @ lunardewdrops ) in my art posts , I tend to change my username from time to time )

◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯

-જ⁀➴ my interests :

- 🌙 paintings , sculptures & art

- 🌙 books & poetry

- 🌙 greco-roman mythology & classical religion

- 🌙 nature & wildlife

◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯

- જ⁀➴ my personal tags :

- # ☾ ⋆*･ﾟphoebe's art 🌙 ➛ i use this one for my own art

- # ☾ ⋆*･ﾟphoebe's thoughts 🌌 ➛ i use this one for when i want to share my thoughts or experiences

- # ☾ ⋆*･ﾟphoebe's WIPs 🌛 ➛ i use this one for unfinished art, colored sketches and/or work that's still in process

- # ☾ ⋆*･ﾟphoebe's asks ☀️ ➛ i use this one for my replies to asks I get

- # ☾ ⋆*･ﾟphoebe's art inspiration 🌕 ➛ I use this one for reblogs of art I like and find inspiring

- # ✦ •°to selene🌘 ➛ reblogs about lady selene

- # ✦ •°to aphrodite🐚 ➛ reblogs about lady aphrodite

- # ✦ •°to artemis 🦌 ➛ reblogs about lady artemis

- # ✦ •°to ares🗡️ ➛ reblogs about lord ares

( often I'll use personalized tags for other deities outside of my patrons that I love to talk about but don't devote myself to , so you'll see that too ! )

◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯

- જ⁀➴ DNI :

- 🌙 This should go without saying, but my blog is no place for hatred or bigotry of any kind. This includes Homophobia & Transphobia , Racism , Misogyny & all of the usual DNI criteria.

- 🌙 Please also refrain from overly sexual behavior, jokes ect . It makes me extremely uncomfortable and is triggering to me , same with depictions & descriptions of violence in any way .

- 🌙 this is a religious blog !! I don't want nor tolerate any disrespectful behavior towards my deities , especially from people who see Greek Mythology as just a silly little fandom. Please be kind and respectful towards my religion :)

◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯

i'd say that's about it for now ! thank you so much for reading my little introduction post ! i'm really excited to learn & connect more with the gods , befriend new people & take you with me on my journey ♡ khaire !

( divider made by me ! ♡ )

[ca-suffit]

Is Lestat colorblind? I know that being colorblind is a myth and impossible in this society, but in this fiction can we say that vampirism transcends identities, whether it's gender, sexual or racial identies ? And Lestat only sees the world in two categories Mortals vs Immortals?

the fandom wants ppl to believe this, and so did anne rice, but no lol. he v much tf is *not.*

idk which version ur asking about so I'm gonna include something from the books, movie, and show.

like. on a level, yes, it could be argued that lestat sees things differently bcuz some part of him does. vampirism was forced onto him and gives him identity issues of his own, so a lot of his character is refusing to give in to his or anyone's negative thoughts about it all. he doesn't like to think about anything too long bcuz it might touch into feelings about a trauma, but this is why he ends up hurting a lot of ppl around him all the time. in the books, he's uncomfortable most of the time when his mother isn't presenting v feminine, despite his awareness of her dislike of it. so she dresses that way for him sometimes. in the show, we see how much lestat's refusal to acknowledge race beyond a fetish-y level of it (when it's not something working in his favor anyway, when he's asked to consider black perspectives on it instead) hurts louis and claudia, and he's aware of it too bcuz he's been told about it.

anne rice always talked about her vampires transcending all kinds of things, but the books are still full of racism, misogyny, classism, homophobia....prbly anything u could think of. I don't think she knew this but it's p obvious to everyone else. her vampires were not transcending anything lol. it's not written in a way that's meant to serve any real critical purpose either, it's just there bcuz it's a reflection of how she viewed the world herself (this is not an assumption, read her interviews and compare the texts).

anyway, lestat prbly doesn't have conscious awareness of any of this himself either but the way he talks across his adaptations shows he has awareness beyond "mortal and immortal." he is never speaking about ppl in only these terms most of the time. he gets rly specific and his actions are rly specific in response to that too. he is navigating the world as a white, european man first most of the time, not just "vampire."

examples under the cut

from memnoch the devil

from prince lestat and the realms of atlantis

1 regarding the alien race they encounter

2 lestat's fantasies about one of the women from this group

amc iwtv

I can't post everything bcuz I'd hit the image limit so here's just a few from the first episode. his affair with a white woman in public at louis' business, his inviting only white soldiers back to the house when he's upset about jonah, his violence towards louis and bringing claudia back from the train are all other examples (and there's still a lot more!) of awareness of race and making decisions based on that, whether it's conscious or not.

1

2

3 lestat thinking racism is an american problem

(loosely related but throwing it in bcuz a lot of ppl miss this)

iwtv 1994

most ppl he's seen eating are women of color

[usaigi]

Oh oh so you’re gonna have the Dimileth fic kinda go like Meghan and Henry with the media and tabloids being obnoxiously racist? I’d love to see that!

I don't want to give to many spoilers but so I'll just say kindaaaa.

This story was inspired a bit by Crazy Rich Asian, a bit by Spencer, a bit by Red White and Royal Blue, a bit by the Crown, a bit by my love of gossip and video essay on youtube.

Specially with Red White & Royal Blue, this video I watched joked about how the book felt like it's from the Obama/Hamilton™ era as it is clearly optimistic about government (and by extension, the British monarchy.) We had a black president, gay marriage was legal, Thomas Jefferson had a miku binder, racism was literally over.

I did not want to do that. I know why RW&RB did what it did, queer & poc people deserve our cheesy fictional romcom where we can overlook the horrors of the monarchy/government for the sake of wish fulfillment. If the Straights can have a million hallmark prince charming movies, we should too. But, what I thought was odd was that RWRB did mention how horrible, outdated, and oppressive the monarchy is, and yet Prince Henry still stays in the family? The monarchy just becomes progressive overnight? Storytelling wise, I thought that was an odd choice. Why even mention the horrors™ if you're not going to address them critically? I honestly think that why Yuri on Ice did it better. By just having an alternate world where homophobia(and racism) doesn't exist, you can just have your cute queer/poc romcom.

I have been (trying) to set up that the monarchy is bad, both to its members and because of its ties to British colonialism. Like I strongly believe that you can't just slap a rainbow flag on the monarchy and call it a day. Dimitri's mom was pushed to an extreme and was not given any of the mental health support she needed. Rodrigue tried to comfort Felix by saying that at least Glenn died in service of the Crown (while they were literally doing colonizer things in the Middle East). Rhea's mom was a random civilian killed by loyalists (*cough cough colonizers*) Sitri was forced to go to a residential school to be Christianized and stripped of her culture. Both events are rooted in British colonialism and by extension, the monarchy and its legacy.

I just think it would be irresponsible of me to have Byleth, a half-indigenous half-Irish girl, and not address it. Like irl the tabloids and the monarchy couldn't be normal about Meghan Markle, what would they say about our favorite working class autistic brown rural girl?

Anyway, it will come up soon! (Next chapter will conclude Rhea's story, then some hospital stuff, and then Rufus is introduced? So next three chapters? I don't know how the chapters will break but it's coming)

Thank you for the ask and interest in the story, I love talking about it! :D

[echobx]

these pics and videos spoilers im seeing is making me a bit sad as a jjpope shipper.... seeing jiara fans happy that rudy and madison are filming scenes between both makes jjpopes future look even worse. i was really hoping for s4 to be their season? pics of kiara and jj in same bedroom? i dont feel good at all for whats coming. how can the show ignore jjpope and their potential?

i feel the same anon. but I still have some hope because all we have got to see hasn't been very romantic looking in my eyes. and to the clip of Madison in bedroom next to a guy, that's JD, that's not Rudy. bc that video they screenshotted from was is on Madelyn's Instagram and I'm pretty sure it's JD based on the fact that he commented something on it that is visible on his body in the shot.

also, the fact that they zoomed in on a poster on a wall and then said "this is proof they live together" is just not holding up. bc (1) not just Kie can have this poster and just bc they used it in her room in s3 doesn't mean they didn't just use it to save money on new props (the surfshop of JB and Sarah has the same logo as the one we have already seen in s1&2 so unless they buy that thing, I'm just calling it cheap production and not wanting to create a new logo) (2) there was no confirmation whose house they are at in this clip, and (bc I'm that bitch) when you look out the window in the video, you can clearly see the marina. so they can't be at JJ's bc of the location of the house. I'm calling it and say their at Pope's or Kie has her own house.

on the other hand what still gives me hope, is that everything I have jiara shippers seen talking about (especially on twitter) has still no ground to stand on. tbh hey sound very delulu to me with all they are saying right now. I mean, I have seen more bts clips were Rudy and Madison don't seem as happy to be there, or aren't even in the shots together, than ones where they are.

I do have hope that the writers aren't that dumb and do what they did with KiePope and give us just a little and then let the characters realize that it's not working out.

I'm also super confused about Luke being there, and tbh I hate that they are doing it now bc they wanted to do that last season and then didn't bc bts leaks and jiara. but what I hate more is ppl going "omg luke is gonna throw JJ off Redfield Lighthouse!!" like why? why would they kill off the one character that keeps thousands if not millions of ppl interested in the show. bc if I'm totally honest, if they do kill him off I'm not gonna keep watching. same with Pope. if one of them dies, I'm done with this shitshow and it'll be fanon forever. (it already is bc canon is shit with holes)

ig my main issue with all that jiaras are doing isn't that they are shipping it, ship what you want, but the impact they get to have and the little media literacy they seem to have too. the homophobia and racism of it all

but then again, JJ is still wearing the bandana in the back right pocket. and I do hope for some good changes (for us) bc none of the official promo they gave us yet was in any instance showing anything about jiara. they gave them nothing. and maybe that's why jiaras sound so delulu to me right now, bc if how they say "this is jiara's season" was true, why wouldn't the short clips we got a few months ago have anything in them that gives jiaras genuine hope? no instead we got a group shot where the two are far apart, then the boys, and Sarah looking sad again. no jiara in sight. and maybe that's why I have hope, but that might also just be a marketing strategy idk.

they should let Kie cheat on him with a girl, that's what I wanna see. she should just fuck a girl and then come home and break up with JJ. that's what I want deep in my soul. bc just from the first intro we got into JJ (JB's pilot episode monologue) it's so damn obvious that they will never work, even if they weren't both raging homosexuals.

[faethfigueroth]

ok i'm bored so let's lock in some theories

somewhere in episodes 4-6: i think the bt issues are gonna come up somewhere around here, and they're gonna be dealing with something either a) gerrard related, or b) related to buck's past as a player + his questionable behavior with taylor, but i think (a) is more likely. with (a) i imagine they could add in some manufactured t*mmy backstory with gerrard to frame him as a victim and frame gerrard as his "father figure" in the way that bobby is buck's. and i'm almost sure they're gonna do their damnest to NOT bring up anything related to his or gerrard's racism/sexism. if they focus on the bigotry aspect of it at all (which i'm not really sure they will tbh) it's probably gonna be homophobia-focused. if they don't focus on the bigotry at all and just focus on gerrard being a bad boss, i think there's more of a possibility that they'll actually frame t*mmy as being the one causing problems, which does line up more with how oliver was talking about everything related to their issues this season and how it seems like they're gonna genuinely consider breaking up with each other over this, although i don't think they will in the end (at least not yet).

with (b) they could do a bit of a callback to early s7 with the buck's player history stuff, combined with t*mmy finding out about how he cheated on taylor then subsequently asked her to move in and how their relationship has kind of been mirroring that one. honestly not sure how they'd tie this into anything other than maybe getting into buck's insecurities in relationships, so i think (a) is lot more likely, but i also think this is still possible.

i also think somewhere around when this is happening, eddie's gonna be having his own separate storyline about go to church to seek 'forgiveness", which will hopefully end in him being able to forgive himself and stop ruminating in his own guilt and punishing himself every time he fucks up. maybe he'll finally get to yell at his parents and tell them he deserves better :)

episode 5: this sounds like it's gonna be a funny kind of ridiculous episode for buck with a little seriousness sprinkled in, and seems to point to the gerrard stuff that happens after he recovers. i think buck's gonna spend episodes 2-4 feeling super guilty while gerrard's in the hospital (possible callback to s7 where buck didn't know whether he meant to hurt eddie), then gerrard is gonna be recovered in episode 5. then my guess is that gerrard's gonna start trying to be super buddy-buddy with buck, which on one hand is gonna satisfy buck's need to be liked and issues with authority, but on the other hand is gonna put him in a weird spot with the rest of the 118 now that he's being obviously favored and doesn't know how to react to that. if they were smart this is where they'd bring up the racism/sexism of it all, but i still think they're resolutely not gonna touch on any of the bigotry given the fact that this episode is supposed to be so funny. so i think it's mainly gonna be an authority issues + selfish need to be liked sort of thing.

also i think it's possible eddie won't be in this episode given the shaving timing of it all

episode 6: for buck, this is probably gonna be a continuation of whatever his story was in episode 5, so, again, gerrard related. with josh being seemingly heavily involved in buck and maddie's conversation, my guess is that it's either a) homophobia + t*mmy related (but again, i think it's unlikely) or b) authority-issues related, which could make sense given we've been seeing josh navigating being a boss to people as well, so ig he could provide a different perspective there. or that conversation could have nothing to do with buck and be related to a maddie storyline, who knows.

they also said this is gonna be a big episode for eddie, although i don't think it's gonna be a big episode for buddie. i'm pretty sure eddie shaves his mustache in this episode so we'll be getting some focus on that. my guess is that it has something to do his feelings about being a father and the whole "i'm broken" thing from s7, which will probably tie into eddie's whole church thing. i'm very doubtful that it will have anything to do with his sexuality (at least directly, could be indirectly implied/foreshadowed)

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

Okay I've made enough posts about it I'm gonna actually write up my overall thoughts/recommendation for Ex Wives of Dracula. Real quick, since I haven't actually mentioned it up to this point, the basic premise of the story is that two former best friends reconnect in small town Texas, before one of them is brutally attacked and becomes a vampire.

Firstly, this is a book that plays with genre very effectively. You know how a lot of horror movies have one scene at the beginning of, like, normal high school bullshit before someone gets murdered? Imagine if a movie instead spent the first hour of it's runtime on a typical coming of age/romcom narrative with all the pacing and direction you'd expect from that genre, and then that scene happened. There's a real sense of genuine shock, a "oh my god this can't be happening. This kind of thing doesn't happen, right?" But it does. That first chapter of horror is very solidly written on its own, but it hits like a truck because of how normal everything has been up to that point. The rest of the book continues with that, ibterspacing its horror generously with normal life, and I found it to be pretty effective.

The book also has some very pointed critiques to make about small town culture, about how ugliness is allowed to fester because no one wants to rock the boat, and about how things like high school sports take on an outsized and overwhelming place in the collective consciousness, because what else do you have to be proud of? It's not unique stuff, but it's a take on it that rings very true in a way I haven't often seen.

The plot as a whole is pretty well executed - there are some very effective twists and surprises that never felt cheap or like they hadn't played fair with me. The core that holds it all together is the developing relationship between our main character Mindy and her long estranged, recently reconnected with best friend Lucia. I think the character writing is excellent - there's a lot of rawness and vulnerability and teenage defensiveness that is captured very well, and the way their relationship develops is messy, vulnerable, intense, and compelling. They are the beating heart of the story, and they sell it. That being said, I do think the climax and denouement are the weakest parts of the book, which really isn't ideal. They have some good stuff, but I feel like they're paced wrong and there are a few elements that aren't, like, at odds with what's come before, but that don't naturally follow from it either.

One last central element to this book is it's commitment to it's setting. This book focuses on the culture specific to 2015 conservative American high school, and if you either never knew or have forgotten how nasty that was, this book is going to punch you in the face with it. Expect an enormous amount of casual cruelty and blatant, thoughtless homophobia, transphobia, racism, fatphobia, xenophobia, and misogyny, along with nastiness towards people with eating disorders and basically every stripe of meanness or prejudice you can imagine. Speaking as someone who did go to a conservative high school in 2015, the recreation is spot on - there are even references to some specific rumors about celebrities that I remember hearing from my peers at the time - but it was jarring to hear so much casual cruelty injected into conversation by people who weren't even trying, that's just how people talked. So fair warning. As someone who grew up in that kind of environment, I found that it added extra depth to the central relationship; it was the exact kind of prejudice, internal and external, that I would've had to grapple with of I had pursued a queer relationship in high school. But I don't know how resonant that will be to people who don't share that lived experience.

On the whole, though, this is a book that I enjoyed, and one I would definitely recommend.

[schizowitchic]

re: the last post i reblogged i am now going to rant about biphobia i have experienced and am experiencing! yay /s

(under a cut bc this got way too long)

so in secondary school i was in a friend group full of queer people, majority of whom were bisexual girls (at the time. a couple are now nonbinary / asexual) . and they were very big on the whole "bisexual culture is liking every woman and 2 men" thing, a lot of "ew men" jokes, and all in all general "liking women is better than liking men" "why am i dating a gross icky man i should be with a woman".

now i am more attracted to men than women, not by much, its typically fairly equal, but i definitely have a leaning towards men. and i repressed that for AGES. because it simply was "frowned upon", so to speak, from almost everyone i was close with

(for further context for the rest of this. i am not out as genderfluid. i use she/her pronouns irl and ppl know me as a cis woman. i am not really out as aromantic, when i identified as aroace i did tell a few people but i think they either completely ignored me or forgot. lol.)

nowadays, i tell my friends i am bisexual. one in particular always seems to forget, constantly calling me gay/lesbian, assuming i have no opinion or that my opinion will be "ew no" when she asks if i find a man she likes hot. (she has told me so many times "why am i asking you this you don't even like men". i have told her i am bisexual several times) (she also thinks it's funny to call me & another friend "f-slurs" . she says that not the actual word but still. i have to find it funny bc she gets so defensive if we imply she's homophobic)

(i do call myself gay bc i consider none of my attraction ever to be straight. i have no major issues with being called a lesbian apart from the fact that. yknow. im not a lesbian and have never identified as such)

i made a post a while back saying something like "help im being biseuxal erasured". because i am!! i am stuck in yet another situation with people who are either mainly attracted to women/only attracted to women/don't often talk about their attraction to me & also two cishet girls who are attracted to men in a very different way than i am (one of whom erases the fact i am attracted to men and the other who i don't like and probably assumes i'm a lesbian bc of how often everyone else says that)

also full of "ew men" jokes!!. might i add.

i literally have no space to talk about the way i experience attraction, i have to water it down and pretend i only like women, pretend i am interested in romance, pretend i feel attraction when the occasioanll bout of extreme sex-repulsion hits, take (albeit censored) homophobic slurs, sex jokes about me & another female friend that are getting uncomfortable.

and pretend like the main perpretatror of this isn't being at all queerphobic. (she also has massive racism and antisemitism issues. although my friend did throw basically a whole book at her face when she made a really bad joke). to the point where i no longer consider her a friend but i can't say that bc then im overreacting and i'll get the same bullying ostracisation treatment & my friends are still gonna hang out w her so i can't avoid it

people wonder why i am aplatonic when throughout friendships i have experienced: making fun of me to my face & behind my back, bullying, homophobia, biphobia, aphobia, ableism .

like what the fuck. im sick and fucking tired of having nowhere safe to express my sexuality bc let's be real, the internet often isn't the best space.

ive made my peace with either having to compromise my aromanticism or my allosexuality irl (ie either be out as bisexual or out as aroace) but apparently i can't even freely be bisexual without people making assumptions and at this point im just waiting it out until i can hit restart and try make new friends

[life-in-the-monster-haus]

you sound extremely white…. especially in your posts defending Gil and blaming shit on Lagoona, like….

your posts only convinced me even more that those two shouldn’t be together.

girls shouldn’t have to put up with racism for the sake of a guy and implying that lagoona should just go “that sucks 😢” whenever gil mentions his parent’s racism? Like wtf how is that a better lesson for kids than her wanting her boyfriend to stand up for himself? and if protecting lagoona from racism is oh so terrible for gil, just…. have them break up ffs. don’t encourage kids to stay in relationships like that where one has to endure racism for the other cus otherwise the person with racist parents gets punished.

Like, way to make it POC’s fault for racist parents being abusive to their kids? “it’s all lagoona’s fault cus she forced gil to take a stand against racism even tho his parents would punish him” like wow. you truly sound very white.

let’s also not gloss over the fact that you called Lagoona a bitch at one point for crying when Frankie asked her about boys. or you calling Draculaura a cow at one point too like wtf??? so maybe lay off the gendered insults for girls??? before jumping to the defense of a character POC dislike and who’s flaws you excuse as trauma cus you see yourself in him.

I'm gonna put this answer under a cut because some folks get cranky when I make long posts, even though there is a feature in your settings that can auto trim long posts, I get blamed anyways... it's easier to blame the person than to address the problem directly isn't it?... hey! that's kinda what happens to Gil! let's discuss.

Saying someone sounds white based off text and nothing else. 🚩🚩🚩

I'm Puerto Rican, thanks for asking. But I blamed shit on Lagoona because, some stuff was her fault, specifically stuff that put Gil directly in harms way. Maybe your cool with dumping your personal baggage on a disabled 16 year old but I'm not and no one should.

My posts were never written to prove that Gil and Lagoona are meant to be together, perfect for each other OR even good together, you're confusing me with a shipper, at most I've stated Gil is decent boyfriend material and I stand by that. The entire reason I write them is to prove Gil is an innocent and defend him from slander that this annoyingly prevalent sub-section of the fandom has been spreading that has absolutely NO basis in canon, if you read my posts like you claim to you'd have known that. I'm not really sure WHY Gil has become the fandom punching bag, Maybe it's because he's less masculine than the other MH guys? is it because he's Asian coded? is it because he needs a device to breathe? Maybe it's some unholy combination of homophobia, racism and ableism. fuck if I know, so I went looking: I watched hundreds of webisodes, days worth of movies and countless pages of teen wank in diaries so that y'all didn't have to and I put it in an easily digestible format but I guess that wasn't good enough for you hmm?

Girls shouldn't have to put up with racism for the sake of a guy. you're completely correct and I don't think I ever made that claim. UNFORTUNATELY saltwater people DO face racism in the G1 Monster High universe and Lagoona would face that same racism regardless if she was dating Gil or not. The racism isn't radiating from Gil, Lagoona says herself there is a long standing system of oppression against saltwater monsters which I covered here.

Also don't put words in my mouth, it's poor form- especially in a text based forum where people can go back and re-read everything we both said. I never once implied "that lagoona should just go “that sucks 😢” whenever gil mentions his parent’s racism" I said it was wrong of her to force him to tell his parents that he was seeing her, especially when she knew they had a threat hanging over his head. Also Gil doesn't just go around mentioning his parents are racist, it's just a fact that exists in this universe and when he IS forced to talk about it, it's always spoken with great shame. Like when he tried to dump Lagoona during the Gloom Beach arc, Y'all think they should have broken up? well here you go. Gil tried to break things off with Lagoona before they were even officially dating, he knew it was painful and tried to spare her. But she likes him and he likes her, so obviously that didn't work.

Gil DID stand up for himself, A LOT. I documented it WELL with pictures, links and colored words for emphasis! I practically spoon fed it to the reader from a silver platter, a child could understand it. If you read my review well enough to understand it to the point that you have a problem with it that you just HAD to tell me about, you'd know that. But clearly you gave my review as much attention as you gave canon because here is what happened in canon again since I don't think you listened the first time it aired or when I said it. In Episode 24 Gil defends Lagoona against Mr. Hack's bigoted statement that Sea Monsters are bad parents, they weren't even dating at that point they were just classmates. He defends Lagoona directly again in Volume 2 where he speaks directly to his parents (Probably his Father?) On the phone in front of Lagoona. THAT phone call? got him sent to a Boarding school far away as punishment for defying his parents wishes and wanting to be with Lagoona and he was there for the entire summer and half of the next school year. They are still TECHNICALLY not dating by this point they are just hanging out and into each other - even without the reward of Lagoona, Gil STILL stood up for her, got punished for it and came back for more because he directly defends Lagoona to his racist parents AGAIN in Volume 3 where Lagoona isn't there, it's just him and his parents so you know how he feels is genuine and not performative, there's a whole episode about it called "Defending your Lagoona" ... I didn't even need to write what I did, the episode should have been enough proof but clearly no one pays attention to either canon or context because some key component of understanding clearly got lost in translation. I'm gonna ASSUME that most of y'all just haven't watched G1 in literally 9 years and have FORGOTTEN the subtle things that make Gil a good kid, it's like y'all watched the first half of skull shores and were like "Wow, Gil is a piece of shit!" - without finishing the movie to know that he saved everyone in the end. People cite Gil being "wishy washy" or "spineless" as reasons why they don't like him, but the shit this kid has been though? He could be getting flogged off screen like Jesus in "the Passion of the Christ" for defying his parents for all we know: he's scared of his parents for a reason but he has been ALWAYS loyal to Lagoona and he stood up to Mr. Hack, Farnum and his own parents for her... the kids spine is made of iron. Some of y'all can't get your man to take a shower for you meanwhile Gil is out here chewing bigots a new one for Lagoona.

Rebelling against your parents prejudice and wrong beliefs to live a life that makes you happy is a GREAT message for kids to learn.

"if protecting lagoona from racism is oh so terrible for gil, just…. have them break up ffs. don’t encourage kids to stay in relationships like that where one has to endure racism for the other cus otherwise the person with racist parents gets punished."

Do you want to watch a show where they are constantly pining for each other because they can't be together? Because I don't... If I wanted to torture myself with love that is there but also isn't there I'd watch Miraculous. Lagoona also never endured any racism directly at the hands of the Webbers, she was just told not to date their son and they didn't even tell her themselves, Gil was always the messenger and he softened the blow as much as he possibly could. while it sucks that she keeps getting bad news it's not really quite the same as experiencing it first hand. But any story-line where the racists get what they want is a bad story-line.

"Like, way to make it POC’s fault for racist parents being abusive to their kids?"

... Did you seriously just try to tell me that G1 Lagoona is a person of color. Blonde haired, green eyed, beach waved hair, light skinned, tiny nosed, Australian, voiced by a white woman, Lagoona... is a person of color... I'm not saying that any of these traits in of themselves automatically makes G1 Lagoona white OR that people of color can't have any of these traits. I'm just saying that all of them PLUS how she's handled in the show with her privileged Yacht owning parents AND the sheer nerd rage from fans at her being Latina in G3 and thus "no longer white" are things that make her white. I know many people have head-canons that shes Aboriginal and that would be fantastic if it was true. But let us not give Mattel too much credit to think that far ahead. for all intents and purposes, G1 Lagoona is white.

HOWEVER, what she is going through IS a common struggle among people of color and I think Mattel did this intentionally to avoid torturing an actual person of color. Little brown kids get subjected to racism enough, they don't need to watch the cartoon mermaid go through it too. or maybe now I'm the one giving Mattel too much credit they probably just wanted to show "Look! white people have it tough too!"... Honestly? this whole allegory would have worked better if Lagoona was a dude and Gil was gay. None of you would have dared to force Gil out of the closet if Lagoona was a dude and his parents were homophobic, but for some reason because it's racism and not homophobia it's okay!? to put Gil at risk!? Would y'all be like "Maybe if Gil just wasn't into men he wouldn't have these problems!" being homeless because of being gay and being homeless because of racism is STILL being homeless, he gets disowned either way.... Make it make sense folks, because it doesn't. Didn't an actor recently get forced out of the closet and it was widely regarded as an awful thing? So why are we so gung-ho to make Gil tell his racist parents he's dating a girl he knows they won't like? Would you do that to him if he was gay and wanted a boyfriend? probably fuckin' not.

I never said everything was Lagoona's fault she is ALSO young and still learning, but somethings were - like him getting sent to boarding school. I realize that Lagoona is a fandom darling and most of y'all's precious little meow meow but she was wrong for that. And I don't hate that, I LIKE that we get flawed characters! Do I love it? No! she was wrong! BUT I LIKE that she was wrong, part of being young and learning is screwing up and making mistakes! we deserve complex characters who aren't perfect in every way. Being pushy and assertive is part of what makes Lagoona a compelling character - but it got someone hurt in this instance and she should learn from that... THAT is good writing... and it's one of the rare instances of good writing we get with these two but I'll get to that in a minute.

"let’s also not gloss over the fact that you called Lagoona a bitch at one point for crying when Frankie asked her about boys."

Once again putting words into my mouth, By making this statement it LOOKS like you read Page 2 of my media analysis but did you though? because context is SUPER important. I did not call Lagoona a bitch for crying, I called her a bitch for being mean to Frankie. Frankie went to Lagoona whose supposed to be their friend for advice but instead Lagoona made it all about her and was then sarcastic to Frankie's plight because her problem is worse and She's aiming for the gold medal of the Pain Olympics. I hate the pain olympics, there are no winners, only losers.

"you calling Draculaura a cow at one point too like wtf??? so maybe lay off the gendered insults for girls???"

And why DID I call Draculaura a cow?... Was it because she was cheating on her black boyfriend with a white guy? 3 seconds after he walked off screen!? because I'm pretty sure it was because she was cheating. once AGAIN we are in a situation where context is important! In the exact same page just discussed I took an entire sidebar to explain why Draculaura was being a cow. I have absolutely zero respect for cheaters and I could have (and should have) called her a lot worse. I'd also like to say that as far as insults for girls go? Cow is fairly mild I could have called her another C word that is frequently used against girls but I went with cow to keep it classy~. also side note: there are male cows, I think they're called Steers... but it's still a cow. Anyways I don't think you really care what I call Draculaura, I think you're now just trying to paint me out as some type of misogynist... which, just proves you don't follow me or know anything about what I preach here you're just mad that I defended a boy whom you're assuming is white.

"before jumping to the defense of a character POC dislike and who’s flaws you excuse as trauma cus you see yourself in him."

UHM... I don't recall reading anywhere that Gil is disliked by POC specifically!?!?! I can't track the barometrics of Monster High tumblr... In fact from what I can gather if TikTok & Twitter are anything to go by most of the people who are hating on Gil are overwhelmingly white... but at the same time I'm not polling anybody either. But just for the record I'm Latine and my friend who helps me out with MH & Gil lore, @peppapigvevo isn't white either... Sooo if your point is that POC are the ones who don't like Gil... I'm here to tell you that POC are also the ones defending him.

But Gil canonically doesn't really have a ton of flaws and the tiny ones he does have stem from him being young and inexperienced, frankly I wish he had more, it would give people a legit reason to hate on him instead of their reasoning now which boils down to: "His parents are racist and even though HE isn't racist I'm gonna blame him anyways because someone on social media told me to and I haven't watched the show in a decade so my memory of the lore is fuzzy at best but I saw Lagoona cry once so Gil MUST be the bad guy!." Which... Y'all are expecting perfection from Gil and that's a ridiculous standard for anyone to live up to let alone a 16 year old boy. But I'm not like... making up trauma for Gil, based on how much he fears his parents THAT is a trauma response that they have instilled in him, it's there I didn't invent it. healthy normal kids don't fear their parents the way Gil fears his, I can only assume he is afraid because they have given him a reason to be afraid. a statement I have also said, several times, in my posts that you claim to have read and take issue with.

Was Gil and Lagoona's relationship written extremely well? No. But do I think Mattel should have never touched the issue of racism in their show? also No! it took a lot of guts to put a story about prejudice in a kids cartoon and MH is for little kids, their target demographic is 6-11yr olds, obviously MH skews a bit older, otherwise none of us would be here. But I'm glad they covered this topic, I don't much care for shows that shy away from scary issues or talk to kids like they're stupid because kids aren't stupid, they're little proto humans who learn things way faster than we do and we should treat them as such. Not only did they touch the topic they did so with a main character and they didn't sugar coat it! we saw the pain Lagoona AND Gil went through because of his parents racism. Touching this topic at all is huge, was it perfectly handled? absolutely not! they never actually resolved the issue, Gil's parents never learned a lesson, got comeuppance or accepted Lagoona, Gil never got to date the girl he likes with family approval there was always something looming in the background. which is... fine?... things aren't always wrapped up nice and pretty with a bow in real life, sometimes things are messy. However, one thing that bothered everyone, including me was towards the end of G1 the writers didn't really know what to do with Lagoona and Gil so they just kinda... rehashed the same fight 3 or 5 times... it happened in the webisodes, diaries and the movies. and that's sloppy on the writers part, the same fight being milked for drama isn't Gil's fault and shouldn't be blamed on him... but it is. Gil is just the messenger and y'all shot him on sight.

Mattel:

Gil:

However, that wasn't the end. Gil and Lagoona may not have got the fairy tale ending some people think they deserve or the tragic breakup that other people think they deserve but they did get closure. Gil's Mansters diary takes place after the events of 13 wishes and his parents wrote out a list of chores for him to do while they are out on a trip and before he goes to stay with Deuce for the weekend and the last thing he SAYS they put on the list is as follows:

"+ Don't date Lagoona. They didn't actually write that. I just know what they're thinking. Actually, we don't really talk about that directly very much anymore. We kind of just agree to disagree, especially since Lagoona was wished into a freshwater monster and back again. I think they saw how miserable I was during that whole time, and I believe it made some kind of an impact.. hopefully."

and that was how the saga of Gil, Lagoona & The Webbers ended. Not with a roar but with a whisper. It's also canonical proof in his own words that Gil was, in fact miserable during 13 wishes just in case anyone doubted it after my review.

It's not a happy ending or a sad ending it's not even a peaceful ending. it's an uneasy cease fire... which is good enough? I suppose. Gil's parents love him enough to let it go (after both Lagoona and he endured great personal struggles), They know he's dating Lagoona and he knows they don't like that, Lagoona knows they don't like it, I'm sure Lagoona isn't welcome over for dinners or anything but the issue has been dropped. Gil and Lagoona can finally date, no strings attached.

I'm sure that's not the ending you would have written, my very grumpy anon. But relationships are complex and sometimes the solutions to their problems are complex too but love finds a way to triumph over bigotry.

And that is a message that we could all learn from.

[rappaccini]

I think that ship is really ruining things for both characters and rotting the brains, because I keep seeing people invent a 42 varint of gwen solely for the purpose of shipping her with the other Miles...like that literally all she seems good for to them huh...to be shipped with him. A character being reduced to a love interest for a man. Literally the issue people had with her character in the first place. Not to mention, 42 variant Miles entire story and background, which I feel will tie strongly into his culture/community which will be highly afro centric...is being ignored and made all about a white girl. Do they not see the issues and weird implications?

Given I honestly don't think that's the way they'll handle his story...it's still annoying to see people push for it because like...is that all you got from the story? Are y'all even paying attention to what the movies are doing and trying to tell you? (Given there's still issues there, but the overall theme/message is clear)

agreed. i'm staying the hell out of main spiderverse fandom discussion bc there are too many terminally online kids using purity politics as an excuse to control fanspaces, but the way the fandom treats gwen these days makes my blood boil. she's either hated for having flaws and trying to be her own person, or put on a pedestal as the Perfect Girlfriend Whose Entire Existence Revolves Around Miles.

even in older spider-gwen fandom spaces, now you can't have a single conversation about her without a flood of new people bursting in and insisting that we make it All About Gwiles. like... i hate gatekeeping! i'm happy more people care about gwen now! but ffs do you care about gwen, or do you care about gwiles?

(it's the latter. they care about gwiles. they don't see gwen as a person, they see her as a person's girlfriend with no purpose when her boyfriend isn't in her presence or on her mind. and/or as a vessel to project themselves into a relationship with miles.)

as for why... most of the people in this fandom haven't read the comics at all or the most they've seen is three pages from sitting in a tree out of context, or they've read the inaccurate fan-operated wikis. all they're going off of is the movies, where gwen being The Girlfriend is framed as a positive, subversive thing. so to them, gwen getting to have powers, date spider-man and live feels progressive in comparison to tasm gwen, because they have no clue what her narrative actually is. and as far as they know, gwen and miles are a perfect couple who have no better romantic interests.

(again i don't like gatekeeping! if you move into a new neighborhood, you shouldn't have to make your house look like your neighbors', but if none of them have a basement, you should probably talk to them to figure out if digging one's gonna make your damn house collapse i before you start ripping up the foundation.)

i also blame fandom being fandom. no matter how subversive the source material they are fans of, even if the fandom's not dominated by white guys, fandom will always reflect the same bullshit from greater society. same racism, same sexism, same homophobia, just often under a layer of progressive paint. same disregard of female characters unless they support a more popular male character. same surface-level championing of diversity and inclusion... while characters of color are both ignored / stereotyped / tokenized and fetishized / sanded down to be more palatable to a presumably-white audience (the same applies for queer characters). like, the same shit's happening in the spiderverse fandom.

as for gwen 42... yeah i'm not loving how the fandom took the possibility of her existing and immediately made her into a darker edgier girlfriend for miles. really? that's the most you can imagine?

(... esp considering if earth-42 is similar to earth-1610 in that there was a peter parker spider-man before miles, odds are gwen-42 is 30something and long dead. and even if she isn't, why does she have to be attached to miles in any way?)